Michigan Protection Against Discrimination for Wearing the Uniform

1909 PA 105 has never been amended and is still law. Section 35.461 makes it unlawful for any common carrier, innkeeper, or proprietor or lessee of any place of public amusement or entertainment, or any agent, servant or representative of one, to debar from the full and equal enjoyment of the accommodations, advantages, facilities or privileges of any public conveyance on land or water, or any inn or place of public amusement or entertainment, a person in the military or naval service of the United States or of this state who is wearing the prescribed uniform, on account of wearing the uniform or of being in that service. The remedy is in the next section and it is a private right of action. A person debarred contrary to section 1 is entitled to recover, in an action on the case against the corporation, association or person guilty of the violation, actual damages and one hundred dollars in addition. The evidential rule is the part that makes it usable. Evidence that the person debarred was at the time sober, orderly, and able and willing to pay for the enjoyment at the rates fixed for civilians is prima facie evidence in the action that they were debarred on account of wearing the uniform or being in the service. The burden shifts to the business once the service member shows they were sober, orderly and able to pay. The $100 was a substantial sum in 1909 and is not now. What survives as valuable is the structure: a statutory cause of action, actual damages, and a burden-shifting presumption, against a defendant who in a modern case would be an airline, a hotel, a cinema or a sports venue. The class protected is people in service wearing the uniform rather than veterans. A veteran in civilian clothes is outside it; a Guard member travelling home from drill in uniform is inside it. Section 35.461 covers the military or naval service of this state as well as of the United States, so the Michigan National Guard is included. Michigan's general civil rights statute, the Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act, does not list military status as a protected characteristic in public accommodations, which is why this old section still does work. A modern claim would more usually be framed under a carrier's own contract of carriage or under federal law, and this section is worth knowing as an additional count rather than as the only one.